Victory Is in the House students’ watershed showcases bright future
App Makes Safety a Snap Got an emergency?
The 2011 Solar Decathlon
liquid dessicant waterfall
O ne key element of WaterShed was the “liquid desiccant waterfall,” which uses a saline solution to pull moisture from the air and control humidity in the home. Designed for and first used in LEAFHouse, WaterShed’s version modi-
turned into a WaterShed event, with the university’s entry taking first place in the U.S. Department of Energy competition. The highly energy-efficient house beat out 19 others built by students around the world, including China and New Zealand in the contest held in Washington, D.C., last fall. WaterShed improved upon Maryland’s second-place finish in 2007 with LEAFHouse. “The whole experience has been a once-in-a-lifetime adventure,” says Allison Wilson, M. Arch ’11, one of the student leaders. “I think our whole team had dreamed about what winning would be like, but the reality is so much better.” More than 200 students from a variety of disciplines, including architecture, environmental science and engineering, worked to design and build the house. It features a split-butterfly roof that captures and uses rain and sunlight; a wetland that stores rainwater and filters household water; and a patent-pending dehumidification system. The team is in the process of selling the house and hopes it can be maintained to promote sustainable living in the Chesapeake region.–KS
There’s an app for that. M-Urgency, a new smartphone tool developed by computer science Professor Ashok Agrawala and his team in collaboration with the Department of Public Safety, was scheduled to launch in January. With M-Urgency, anyone with a university ID can download the app and transmit streaming audio and video to the Public Safety dispatcher, who will be able to locate the caller through the phone’s built-in locator tool, whether GPS or cell tower triangulation. The application can not only serve the nearly 50,000 students, employees and visitors on campus every day, but also be adapted for any major city across the nation. “The technology, the way it is developed, can be deployed by anybody anywhere,” Agrawala says. The application is available only to Android users, but Agrawala plans to expand it to other platforms.–KS
where the liquid solution and humid air interact, increasing its efficacy.
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fies the salt solution and increases the surface area
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(Left and above) Maryland students and faculty celebrate winning the Solar Decathlon, defeating 19 collegiate competitors from around the world.
Photography courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
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